The role of facets in Knowledge Organization: theoretical and historical aspects

Abstract

On Friday, the 3rd of October, 2014, Professor José María Izquierdo Arroyo delivered a lecture on "The role of the facets in knowledge organization: their theoretical and historical aspects" in the 19th Ibersid conference, during the tribute that Ibersid and Scire members offered to him on the occasion of his retirement as a professor of the University of Murcia, Spain. Professor Izquierdo began his speech by framing the analysis of facets within the philosophical problem of knowledge, which he understands inside the classical tradition as a truth-seeking and dialogic process, which, though deeply personal, is built, validated and shared during communication. He then started to break down the evolution of the concept of ‘facet’ departing from Aristotle. He collected the relevant ideas of the great Greek philosopher from his treatises on logic, rhetoric and ethics. Thereafter, Professor Izquierdo traced the transmission, interpretation and improvement of Aristotle's seminal ideas during the classical and medieval times, paying special attention to the contribution of St. Thomas Aquinas and Ramon Llull. Subsequently, he followed their development during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, focusing his attention on the contributions of Leibnitz. After that, he showed their fructification in the contemporary age throughout fields as different as Linguistics, Communication or Library and Information Science, represented by authors—so diverse, but so intellectually connected—as Ranganathan, Wilkinson, Benveniste, Lasswell, Lausberg or Fillmore. Finally, Professor Izquierdo showed how the Aristotelian tradition unfolds specifically in the LIS subfields of content analysis and knowledge organisation through such concepts as ‘role indicators’, ‘function operators’ and facets. In conclusion, both the detailed outlines of the conference and the audio files themselves are documents of great importance for an archaeology of knowledge organization as a scientific discipline, and for the study of its intellectual history and philosophical roots.